TMS Discussion: The Return of the Romantic Comedy

(Working Title Films / Universal Pictures)

At last, after nearly a decade of absence, the romantic comedy genre is having a relevant comeback. We’ve had a handful of good indie romcoms in the last couple of years, such as Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (2021), P.T. Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021) and Cooper Raiff’s Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022), and this month we’re finally seeing a new, proper mid-budget, star-studded studio romcom in theaters: Ol Parker’s Ticket to Paradise. Those seeking out romantic comedies noticed the genre seemed to take the backburner contemporarily. But why? Well, there have been a few different theories and observations from film fans. One obvious one is the advancement of streaming as an option. Why go to the movie theater for a feature that doesn’t have elaborate effects or flashy cinematography? Personally, I get an extra boost of enjoyment watching comedic movies with a crowd where we can all react and laugh together. But I can see why romcoms would be a great choice for a quiet night at home too. They’re the perfect comfort movie to just relax with after a tough day.

Another factor is that, as sci-fi and action-adventure continue to surge as the go-to genres at the box-office, studios probably don’t feel like putting effort and quality money into romcoms if they might not be worth it. So we get half-assed, barely decent schlock dumped on sites like Netflix and Hulu, as well as the token corny, superficially sentimental romcoms for the holidays via Hallmark and GAC. I can’t fault some of the famous names who sign up for any of these though. When was the last time we saw Hallmark queen Lacey Chabert in a relevant project since Fox’s “Party of Five” (1994-2000) and Mark Waters’ Mean Girls (2004)? One of the better, albeit lowkey romcoms to come out relatively recently is Claire Scanlon’s Set It Up (2018) with Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch, which was released by Netflix. 2018 was also the year we got a rare successful modern romcom in theaters with Jon M. Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians. This was an impressively big hit for Warner Bros, partly because it was based on Kevin Kwan’s already popular book from 2013; and mostly because it had the unique benefit of an all-Asian cast, which we don’t see very often save for indies like Alice Wu’s Saving Face (2004) and Nahnatchka Khan’s Always by My Maybe (2019) [also released on Netflix]. Two other minority adjacent romcoms presently were Andrew Ahn’s Fire Island back in June on Hulu and Nicholas Stoller’s Bros, which just underperformed in theaters. Both set in the gay community and the former also with Asian actors.

(Searchlight Pictures / Hulu)

The fact that Fire Island was a modest hit online, while Bros struggled to capture viewers might prove producers point that people might just prefer to watch romcoms in the living room. There’s also the star power aspect. Bros, Fire Island and Set It Up have many familiar faces, but none as big as George Clooney or Julia Roberts. So while Ticket to Paradise is getting just okay reviews, it’s performing fine with audiences because the public has historically enjoyed watching George and Julia as romantic leads. With the sleeper indie romcom hits lately, Dakota Johnson was biggest name in Cha Cha Real Smooth as the female lead; while Licorice Pizza’s leading lady, Alana Haim is primarily recognized by music fans as one of the members of the pop-rock band Haim. There are virtually no international stars in The Worst Person in the World, but all three movies show the authentic power of good word-of-mouth by viewers and critics. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

(AppleTV)

A lot of the time, filmmakers will fall back on famous tales as the basis for new romantic dramedies as an attempt for easy exposure. This isn’t a new gimmick [see how many teen movies are inspired by classic literature], and even Fire Island was a loose modernization of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. But it is starting to feel a little stale. While it was interesting to see a new romcom with a Latino cast, did we really need a third Father of the Bride adaptation on HBO Max [yet another streaming service] this year? Must every Latina star of a romcom be Jennifer Lopez? I’m actually fine with JLo, and like Owen Wilson, but Kat Coiro’s Marry Me (2022) was just too silly, even for my romcom loving heart. I’d rather see something more similar to María Ripoll’s Tortilla Soup (2001) these days for Latin centered romance. There are a few other things to consider why romcoms are less popular nowadays, such as the 2020 pandemic related lockdowns which forced theaters to close; and resulted in comedies like Michael Showalter’s The Lovebirds (2020) and Nisha Ganatra’s The High Note (2020) going straight to home entertainment. But now people are proving they did indeed miss visiting the movie theater after all those months at home, so the virus excuse is now obsolete regarding how well movies do publicly.

I’m not exactly expecting instant classics to suddenly pop up any week now that people have decided they miss romcoms. Mediocre romcoms have always existed alongside good ones—a la George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940), Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977), Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and Nicholas Stoller’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)—even by the time Robert Luketic’s The Ugly Truth (2009), Mark Steven Johnson’s When in Rome (2010) and Will Gluck’s Friends with Benefits (2011) were panned. But maybe Cha Cha Real Smooth, Fire Island and Ticket to Paradise can help keep up the momentum for some fun, heartwarming love stories in cinema again.